To have any hope of solving the twin crises of accelerating environmental degradation and growing economic inequality, we have to reimagine some fundamental assumptions in both the domestic and economic spheres: What is work? What is leisure? What is labor performed in our homes? How, as a society, do we organize our domestic and work lives so that we can meet our fundamental material and cultural needs?

Cooperative work places have long experience in organizing democratic governance for the means of production, but we need to move beyond industrial-era understandings of social relations. Democratizing the means of reproduction—the social sphere in which we meet the needs for education, health care, and domestic work—is an urgent task that can make another world possible.

In September 30, California took a big step toward giving all residents access to clean energy and green jobs when Governor
Jerry Brown signed SB 535 and AB 1532 into law. The new laws—which are the result of a four-year campaign
by a broad-based coalition—will invest hundreds of millions of dollars towards greening underserved areas and in the
process, support small businesses and bring clean energy jobs to disadvantaged communities each year.

In 1997, the city of Oakland, California entered into an interest rate swap agreement with Goldman Sachs. The
bank promised that the swap would provide savings and allow Oakland to better fund crucial services. But the
swap became a toxic liability in 2008 when Wall Street’s greed crashed the economy and neither the bank nor the federal government helped the city unwind the deal.

Campaign Wins Foreclosure Program in Oakland, Concessions in LA, Sets Sites on National Change

By Robbie Clarke

"I am taking an arrest to call attention to my demand for community control of housing,” says Nell Myhand. “As Ella Baker said about the courageous young people who sat in at lunch counters in the segregated South during the Civil Rights Movement to challenge unjust law, ‘it’s bigger than a hamburger.’” who went to jail fighting for their homes and for the homes of millions of other victims of the foreclosure crisis.

Maya Wiley is the founder and executive director of the Center for Social Inclusion. A civil rights attorney and policy advocate, Wiley was a senior advisor on race and poverty to the director of U.S. Programs of the Open Society Institute. She has worked for the American Civil Liberties Union National Legal Department, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Human Rights Watch, and the Council on Foreign Relations, among others. She currently serves on the Tides Network Board. Wiley was a contributing author to the National Urban League’s The State of Black America 2006. Ron Shiffman conducted this interview for publication in Beyond Zuccotti Park: Freedom of Assembly and the Occupation of Public Space, published by New Village Press. (See Research and Resources, page 87).

Facebook’s decision last year to relocate its corporate headquarters from Palo Alto to Menlo Park gave social justice activists a welcome opportunity to challenge the affluent city’s long-standing neglect of affordable housing.

City officials were eager to accommodate the social networking behemoth because it promised jobs, prestige, and millions of dollars in capital projects and taxes to the city of 32,000. But affordable housing advocates said, “Not so fast!” Menlo Park many not proceed with new development initiatives until it had rectified years of violations around state housing laws. And city officials stopped and listened. What compelled them was the 2010 Superior Court decision in Urban Habitat et al., v. the City of Pleasanton et al. “We essentially shut down Pleasanton’s planning powers until they met their legally required obligation to plan for affordable housing,” explained Richard Marcantonio, managing attorney for Public Advocates who represented the affordable housing coalition that took Pleasanton to court. Now Marcantonio was poised to take on Menlo Park on behalf of a Silicon Valley-based coalition. Refusal to Permit Affordable Housing Challenged Like Pleasanton, Menlo Park at the eastern edge of San Mateo County has long been noncompliant with state housing laws.

All local governments have to zone for their share of regional housing needs at each income level. The requirement, known as the Housing Element in the local General Plan for development, is called for by the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA).

Pages

Race Poverty & the Environment (RP&E)

Freedom Voices and Reimagine invite you to join us in supporting the new book

Until the Streets of the Hood Flood with Green
The story of the Electric Smoothie Lab Apothecary (TESLA)Please support the work TESLA is doing in connecting and growing community while offering vital nutrition and education for our children.

Submissions
We welcome participation from writers and organizers committed to using a race, class and gender analysis in their work. Letters to the editor and articles that meet our submission guidelines may be sent to: reimaginerpe [at] gmail.com or by postal mail to:

Search form

Keep this movement making resource alive! Celebrate 25 years of RP&E by giving $25! Like what you are reading and seeing here? Want to keep up to date with frontline analysis of the social movments of our time? Or donate any amount: $2, $3, $5, $10, $25. . . Donations over $50 receive a book-length printed printed edition delivered to you at a postal address and more.